As the apparatus having the capability of defrosting frozen foods in general to supply them in the state just right for eating, there is already known the apparatus disclosed in (U.S. Pat. No. 3,972,277).
It is true that the apparatus according to the former contrivance by the inventor has in fact satisfied the efficiency required for supplying the consumers with cooked frozen foods while defrosting them in the gross simultaneously and continuously for the purpose of supplying precooked frozen foods by defrosting to the state good for eating to troops (land, sea, and air), schools, companies, or passengers on pleasure ships or ferry boats in a state of collective provision of meals, while the above-mentioned contrivance has had also a merit that the consumer has been permitted to choose his preference from among the variety of cooked foods in ordinary restaurants, unattended coin-operating lunch rooms, or cafeterias.
However, in this defrosting machine for frozen foods according to the U.S. Pat. No. 3,972,277, when a limited number of precooked frozen foods once filled in the machine was all out, there was no alternative but to replenish anew frozen foods thereinto with a man's help.
In contrast with this, the present invention contains some superior features such that it can preserve in a stock room in advance a necessary number of precooked foods such as stewed beefs, beefsteaks, hamburger steaks, pot-steamed hotchpotchs, sushi (vinegared fish and rice), tempura (Japanese deep-fat fried food), boiled rice, rice balls, and the like with maintenance of their sanitary conditions to prevent their deterioration in quality such as the degeneration reaction etc.; and that it is always filled up with frozen foods in the necessary number by being automatically replenished in proportion to the number having gone out one by one, whereby the cooked food suited for the taste of the consumer may be selectively offered through the provision of this defrosting apparatus according to the present invention in specific places such as troops (land, sea, and air), schools, companies, or for passengers on pleasure ships and ferry boats, and visitors staying in hotels, and further in unattended restaurants ordinary restaurants or coin-operated restaurants, for use in the collective provision of meals. In this way it became possible to provide a type of defrosting apparatus which requires no refilling with precooked frozen foods freshly for a given period of time.
To sum up, as compared with the device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,972,277, the present invention can be said to be one that has succeeded in promoting the economizing of manpower by using defrosting apparatus the collective provision of meals in troops, corporations, schools, pleasure ships and the like, or else as the defrosting apparatus used in various kinds of restaurants.
Furthermore, it becomes possible to supply every sort and kind of defrosted cooked foods as desired, when arranging a necessary number of defrosting apparatuses according to the present invention in a row and filling up each of them with one kind of the respective precooked foods such as stewed beef, beef-steak, sushi (vinegared fish and rice), chawanmushi (pot-steamed hotchpotch), and others.
What is more, if using the defrosting apparatuses according to the present invention, it is possible to supply a variety of foods at their desired temperatures just right for eating no matter whether a lower temperature is required as in the case of sushi, salads and the like, or a higher temperature is necessary as in the case of stewed beefs, chawanmushi (pot-steamed hotchpotch), and others.
The invention of this defrosting apparatus will enable the development of a chain store system of unattended restaurants if only a certain mechanism for producing, collecting, and delivering cooked foods took strong root.